Jul 1, 2012

New X Acto and Elmers Products (Review)

I was thrilled to accept the offer of a huuuuuuuge kit of Elmer's and X-Acto products to try out. Packed in a large plastic container were:

· X-ACTO #1 Z-Series Hobby Knife
· X-ACTO Z-Series #11 Blades – 5 Pack
· X-ACTO 12 x 18” White Translucent Self Healing Mat
· X-ACTO Designer Series Metal Ruler
· X-ACTO Designer Series 8” Scissors
· X-ACTO Designer Series 9” Trimmer
· X-ACTO One Hole Grip Punch
· X-ACTO Mini StandUp Stapler
· X-ACTO Rotating Top Handheld Pencil Sharpener
· Elmer’s Foam and Display Board (Mini Bi-Fold and Mini Tri-Fold Boards)
· Elmer’s Craft BOND™ Permanent Dot Runner
· Elmer’s Acid-Free Designer Tape (3 ct.)
· Elmer’s Painters – 5-Pack (Metallics)
· Elmer’s Glue All
Well, the metal ruler, scissors, blades, pencil sharpener and hobby knife immediately disappeared into my art-student-daughter's room. I did manage to retrieve the knife to try it out!
Inspired by some washi tape cards I saw on Pinterest, I made a cake card from the acid free designer tape.
Here are the products from the kit that I used.
The tape is a bit like painter's tape--it's re-positionable. The other interesting thing about it is that it is semi-translucent.
The paper trimmer cut a double layer of card stock smoothly and easily. This trimmer is probably best for cutting photographs, however, as it is quite small in size. I noticed that the blade does not have a safety catch.
I was able to pull off a length of the tape, stick it to the cutting mat, cut it to size (with the hobby knife, of course) and then peel it off and stick it to the card.
I drew the stand with the metallic green painter pen.
I used the grip punch to make the yellow confetti. The punch has soft handle covers. Time to pitch my old one!
The X-Acto hobby knife, performance wise, is everything you would expect from an X-Acto product. For me, the most distinctive feature of this particular model is the rigid plastic safety cap for the blade. I have way too many craft knives floating around my house with the blades exposed because those little flexible covers fall off and disappear.

I'm a big fan of glue runner tape. I didn't use the dot runner tape for this project but I tried it out. It worked fine gluing smooth to smooth, but not so well gluing a piece of embossed card to a smooth card.
The new Elmer's glue formula seems thicker than it used to be, and that's a good thing.
My favorite, favorite thing in the kit is the self healing mat. When my daughter was ooh-ing and aah-ing over the kit I told her, "HANDS OFF the mat!"
It's a great size to use with a standard 12" ruler, like the metal one included in the kit. The mat I've been using is so big it's awkward to use. The X-Acto one is nice and thick and rigid, so it doesn't sag in the middle where my work surface (dining room table) sags a tiny bit. I like the angle lines printed on it, too.
Disclaimer: I received this kit from X-Acto in return for reviewing it. (Check out their Facebook page!) All opinions are my own.Extreme Cards and Papercrafting: pop up cards, movable and mechanical cards, digital crafts and unusual papercrafts.

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